


The Moment Just Before Everything & Other Stories

by Arvylou, Miaou Jones (miaoujones)



Category: South Park
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Illustrated, Love, M/M, Sketches, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-03 04:28:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 9,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arvylou/pseuds/Arvylou, https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Miaou%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series of unrelated sketches, canon-based and AU, about the lives and loves of the South Park kids.<br/><i>Informal collaboration between <a href="http://arvyuula.tumblr.com">Arvy</a> (pictures) and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones">Miaou Jones</a> (words).</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reinventing Language

  


  


"Listen to me, Kyle."

"I am listening, I—"

"No." Stan hadn't been drinking but, as he looked at Kyle now, he got that same floaty, disconnected feeling alcohol sometimes gave him. No, not the same, not exactly; nothing and no one gave him the exact feeling Kyle did.

Still, he didn't want to be drunk for this. He didn't want to float away, not now, when he was so close. He reached out to brace himself on the wall; Kyle's hair, as wild as ever, got in the way—and Stan found his tether.

He switched his gaze back to Kyle's face. "Listen," he said again, looking into Kyle's eyes.

Kyle's eyes widened, his lips parted—but only to breathe. He didn't speak as he opened up and let Stan look into him. He didn't speak as he looked into Stan.

Then he reached out, too. His fingertips rested over Stan's heart. He listened. With each breath, Stan could feel him listening.

Stan was listening, too, so he heard the unspoken words when Kyle smiled.

Just to be sure, though, he touched those words where they rested in the corner of Kyle's smile, read the new unwords like Braille with his tongue, reinventing language with Kyle.


	2. Chicken in a Dress

  
  


  


"Craig—dude, look at that chicken! It's wearing a dress, man!" Still pointing, Clyde stole a glance at his friend, who didn't meet his eyes or follow his finger. "A dress, Craig!" He wagged his finger for emphasis. "A chicken in a dress!"

Craig's eyes focused as he turned to Clyde, gathering in his gaze from the middle distance he'd been dropping it into for the past twenty minutes or so. He studied Clyde without tilting his head. "Is there really a chicken, or is this like that time with the hedgehog?"

"Um," Clyde said. His fingertip sketched aimlessly in the air. "Well, I mean—a duck in a dress, that would be just as cool as a chicken in a dress, wouldn't it?"

They looked at each other, their steady, mutual gaze unbroken even when one or the other blinked.

As Craig turned and looked in the direction Clyde's finger was still pointing, Clyde kept looking at him. Craig's chest rose and fell in an inaudible sigh. "There's no duck."

Clyde looked, too. "I know." He let his pointer finger curl loosely with the others as his hand dropped by his side. "It was a chicken."

"In a dress."

"In a dress," Clyde confirmed.

Craig didn't even bother to give him the finger as they started walking again, and that's what settled it for Clyde. He nudged Craig's shoulder without breaking stride. "What's up, man?"

"Nothing."

Clyde curled his hands tighter and shoved them into his pockets. "Is this like the nothing when your parents weren't getting along last year, and you broke my window at two in the morning?"

"It wouldn't have broken if you and your heavy sleeping didn't make me throw rocks instead of pebbles."

Clyde flipped him off.

"Don't fuckin' give me that, man!" Craig said, smacking Clyde's hand down and sticking his own middle finger in Clyde's face.

Clyde cuffed him back, and it wasn't long before they were tussling on the ground, rolling each other over, and eventually just rolling together, laughter punctuated by puffs of exerted breath.

When they fell apart, they stayed beside each other on their backs, looking up. "Craig." Clyde's finger extended from his stretched arm as he pointed to a cloud wisping across the sky.

"Chicken in a dress?"

"Chicken in a dress," Clyde agreed, matching the grin he heard in Craig's voice as he clasped his hands beneath his head and settled in for an afternoon of cloudgazing.


	3. The Moment Just Before Everything

  


When Kenny thinks about it, he thinks his astral projection is maybe related to all those times he died and floated up and away; like his soul or spirit or whatever somehow learned how to do it, and taught his body.

He's taking a break from the navel-gazing-quest-for-self these days, though, so he doesn't think about it too much. He's just trying to live in every moment like it might be his last, because it might be. You never know. He's not reckless about it; he's just trying to get all he can out of everything that happens, from the mundane to the extraordinary and everything in between.

Like kissing. There's nothing uncommon about kissing. It's not a life-changing or world-shattering act. In the grand scheme of things, kissing doesn't really matter.

But since nothing really matters in the grand scheme, what you choose to do becomes everything.

It's everything when Kenny and Butters kiss these days. When their lips touch, when their breaths and tongues tangle up, Kenny lives in that moment. 

Sometimes, in the moment just before, he lets himself float up and up; not away, but up just enough to see himself with Butters like that, in the moment just before everything.


	4. The Gone Time

When Kyle gets out of the shower, Stan is gone and Kyle thinks he's up and disappeared again. Kyle can't believe it—but then again he can, because ever since Stan showed up out of the blue four months ago after being gone without a word since high school, Kyle's been dreading and waiting for this day.

Now it's here and all he can do is sit on the sofa, towel around his waist, knowing it's probably going to leave a water stain but he can't seem to care. He can't seem to do anything but sit here, as if Stan is going to suddenly walk through the door. Of course he's not, but Kyle sits here looking at the door anyhow, because what you know and what you believe and what you wish, well, those aren't always the same thing.

Kyle goes with wishing. It's impractical and not really his style, but it's what he's doing. He sits there, seeping water stain into the sofa, wishing at the door—

Which opens.

"Oh, hey dude." Stan balances a pizza box in one hand as he shuts the door behind himself with the other. "I got some—what's wrong?"

Kyle doesn't know what he's going to do when he gets to Stan. He's afraid he might just stand there, but he doesn't know what to say yet. As it turns out, he puts his hand on Stan's shoulder, which is kind of strange and maybe pointless, but at least he's not just standing there.

"Hey." Stan puts his hand on Kyle's arm, resting in the crook of his elbow, and Kyle becomes aware of how hard his fingers are digging into Stan as he feels how light Stan's touch is on him. Kyle presses harder. "What's wrong?" Stan says.

"You were gone."

"Oh, yeah, I guess I should have left a note. I thought you were going to take longer in the shower." Stan cocks a half-grin.

Kyle can't smile. "You were gone," he repeats, only he feels like he's saying something new.

Stan must feel it, too. His grin fades. "Oh." He takes a deep breath and says, "Oh," again.

They've never talked about it, the way Stan left without a word; without a word for years. He left and he came back, and he didn't say anything about it and Kyle didn't, either, because he thought maybe if he did, he would make it happen again. He's been holding his tongue for four months; holding his breath all this time.

He lets it out now.

"I'm here," Stan says.

"I know," Kyle says.

He thinks Stan is going to say he won't be gone like that again, and Kyle is prepared to nod because even if he doesn't know anything, he can wish and he can believe.

"Do you want to hear about it?" Stan says. One of his eyebrows quirks up. It makes him look all hopeful. Kyle's almost forgotten what a hopeful Stan looks like.

He falls in love all over again.

"Yeah, dude." Kyle grins. "I really do."

So they sit on the sofa, Kyle still towel-wrapped because there are bigger things than water stains (and anyhow, he thinks he might want to keep this water stain), and dig into the double cheese pizza. And all the gone time vanishes as, story by story, Stan shares it with Kyle.


	5. Clyde's Room (Where He Keeps All His Treasures)

  


When things get rough at Craig's house, he mostly just toughs it out. Doesn't talk about it to anyone, not even his friends. Not even his best friend.

But Clyde knows anyhow.

He's learned that you can't talk to Craig about anything he doesn't want to talk about, which you'd think would be true for most people but somehow isn't. Craig isn't most people, at least not in that regard. Clyde thinks there are a lot of regards in which Craig isn't most people, but that's another subject that's a no-go. Not just the way he once saved the world single-handedly or, more accurately, double-eyedly, but in general the subject of Craig Tucker is not of interest to the kid himself.

So when Craig falls asleep in class for the third time that day, Clyde doesn't say anything. He and Token do their best to defend against Cartman's spitball attacks, mostly successfully, and then it's time for lunch. Craig doesn't fall asleep in the cafeteria but he doesn't really eat, just pushes his food around a little.

"You should go home," Token says. He sees Clyde shake his head but keeps going, addressing his next words as much to Clyde as to Craig: "You're probably coming down with something. I don't want to get sick."

Instead of saying he isn't sick, Craig just shakes his head. That's when Clyde knows how bad it is.

"Hey," he says, knowing it's not the same as what Craig really wants but not having anything else to offer, "you can go to my house. If you want, I mean."

Craig eyes him. "Isn't your mom there?"

Clyde nods. The way Craig is looking at him, the way they're looking at each other, really, Clyde feels like they're having a conversation. He's not sure exactly what they're saying, but he thinks Craig is getting something out of it so he keeps looking.

Finally Craig breaks eye contact. "Okay."

"Okay," Clyde says, too. He even feels like it might be and he can't help smiling.

Craig shakes his head but, before he turns away, Clyde catches the quirked up corner of his mouth. 

Clyde holds onto that upward curve for the rest of the day. When Token asks him if he thinks Craig really went to his house, Clyde says, "Yes," and knows he isn't lying or wrong.

Sure enough, when he gets home his mom tells him Craig is up in his room. She tells him to go on up and she'll bring them cocoa in a little while. Clyde wonders why his mom thinks Craig is here; she must not think he's sick, if she's offering cocoa instead of tea.

He stops thinking about his mom when he pushes open his bedroom door and sees Craig curled up in his bed.

Clyde toes off his shoes and climbs up, folding himself cross-legged at the foot of the bed. He jostles the bed more than he means to and Craig stirs, his eyes opening with heavy blinks.

"It's okay, man," Clyde says. "It's just me."

Craig makes a sound that isn't a word, but Clyde knows all it means when Craig closes his eyes again and slides back down into easy sleep.


	6. Seeing Pretty

  


"Hey, Stan!"

Arms still folded across his knees, Stan looked up. He blinked a couple of times, but even with his vision cleared and eyes focused, it was still Gary Harrison, looking exactly like Gary Harrison.

Stan turned his head, continuing to look at Gary as he dropped himself down onto the grass next to Stan. Their eyes met and Gary's already improbably wide grin widened even more before he turned his attention to the flower Stan had been looking at.

"It's pretty," Gary said.

 _Maybe to you_ , Stan thought. _No—definitely to you_. He didn't feel either resentful or envious of Gary's ability to see things as pretty.

"Hey," Stan finally said. Gary glanced over, grin flashing even wider. "Is this a dream?"

Gary laughed. "Why would you think that?"

"You look like you," Stan said. Gary cocked his head, so Stan tried again. "You don't look like…" He trailed off. "You just—you look. Um. Good?"

It was a stupid thing to say.

But Gary grinned again. Of course he did. "Thanks, man."

A polite person would be expected to add, automatically and without thought or meaning, _So do you_. And Stan had always thought of Gary as an exceptionally polite person. But Gary didn't say anything more.

Neither did Stan.

They sat in silence for a while.

It wasn't bad.

"Hey, so—" Gary said, leaning back to brace himself on his hands he stretched his legs out in front of him. "What's up, man?'

"Nothing," Stan said, automatically and without thought or meaning.

Then he said, "I fucked up."

"How'd you do that?"

"I. Um." Stan swallowed. "I went off my meds."

"Okay," Gary said. Not like it was okay that Stan did it, but that it was okay Stan was telling him. Which was good, because Stan knew it wasn't okay he'd gone off his meds and if Gary had told him it was, it would have made the whole conversation worthless.

"Because," Stan said. Gary hadn't asked him why, but Stan kind of felt like telling him. "Because they. Uh. Inhibit? Me. My…sex drive?"

"Right," Gary said, like he was receiving a fact.

Okay. Good.

"And, Kyle—deserves more." Stan looked away. In the direction of the flower, but not at it. "It was okay for a little while. It was nice. He liked it, and so did I. But now I just…I don't want to do anything at all. Not just, y'know. Sex stuff. But, like. Anything."

After a moment, Gary said, "Are you back on the meds now?"

Stan nodded. "Kyle found out what I'd done and he kind of insisted. They take a while to kick in…" He planned to sit here until they did, until the flower looked like a flower again—until he could see pretty again.

"So you think Kyle's mad at you?"

"I know Kyle's mad at me."

Gary laughed. "Okay, so, that's not the problem. Are you worried he's not going to want you to be his boyfriend anymore, if the 'sex stuff' doesn't happen?"

Stan shrugged. It sounded really stupid when Gary said it like that.

"I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen, man."

Stan shrugged again.

"Hey, Stan—have I ever lied to you?"

Stan looked over to meet Gary's open, sincere gaze. He shook his head.

"Okay, then," Gary said, like something had been settled. He got to his feet, brushing himself off before holding out his hand.

Stan looked at before taking it and letting Gary help him up. He shoved his hands in his pockets when Gary let go, curling that hand around the memory of touch; remembering the way, different, Kyle would hold his hand, too.

He looked over when he felt Gary clap a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry about it, man. Everything's going to be fine."

"Really?" Stan wanted to believe it. He truly wanted to believe.

Gary grinned.

And Stan believed.


	7. Owl & Dog

Craig—for that is what he calls himself when he is alone with himself, as he is now—has seen _this_ many times before. Maybe not this exact _this_ , but this sort of _this_ , yes. He has seen _this_ from a distance but never up close, because he knows _this_ is not food. He's not hungry now, though, so he thinks he might get closer than he has before.

He spirals down and down, never taking his eyes off _this_ , not even to blink. When he is very close, there is a shift and _this_ reveals a head: two eyes, looking back at him.

Looking into him.

There is no threat from _this_ , he decides. There is a small ledge near _this_ , shallow above the ground. It is enough to perch on, and he does. He sidles, edging closer and closer.

When he is so close that he could touch _this_ , he does. He has seen others with _this_ , ones like this if not this exact _this_ ; he has seen them extend their soft, blunted talons and touch on the head. That is what Craig does now: he balances himself, reaches out, places the tips of his talons against _this_.

_This_ looks at him again. _This_ makes a mouth movement, not a threat and not fear. Craig is uncertain how to interpret it.

He touches _this_ again. Again, a mouth movement.

Craig decides he likes it, the mouth movement of _this_. He touches _this_ again and again and more. He touches too hard and his talons get tangled and _this_ makes a tiny pain sound, and Craig readies his muscles for flight—but _this_ looks at him again, and there is no pain and there is no fear and there is no threat, and there is the mouth movement again.

Craig does not understand _this_.

But he likes _this_.

He touches _this_ some more and as he does, he decides he should have something to call _this_ when he is alone with himself and when he visits again; something to distinguish this exact _this_ from all the others like this.

_This_ gives him a feeling like being alone with himself, only better. _This_ gives him a feeling like gliding. 

Clyde.

One more touch; one more mouth movement; and then Craig takes to the sky again. He does not look back. He does not need to—he knows where this place is, he knows where to come to see _this Clyde_ tomorrow.

He glides, talons tucked against his body, still feeling the strange and pleasant tangle.


	8. The Whole Wide World Beyond

  


He doesn't know what he's done this time.

It's nothing new, not knowing what he's done. He may not understand it but knows it's something and he know his fault, because they tell him so. They've always been good like that, trying to explain to him when he's bad so he won't be bad no more.

That was what he thought for a long time, anyhow. He doesn't think so anymore. It took Kenny a while to convince him. It took Mysterion, really. Mysterion is pretty much the best person Butters knows, and he'd never lie. Oh, Butters knows Kenny is Mysterion and Mysterion is Kenny, of course. But Butters can see differences between them sometimes. Anyhow, Mysterion is the superhero and having a superhero—a real, actual, reach-out-and-touch superhero—tell you that you're a good person…well, that means something.

So Butters knows he's a good person, and he knows it's not his fault his parents do stuff like this, locking him in. He doesn't think that makes them the bad ones, not necessarily…he thinks it might all be too complicated for him to understand just yet, and he sure hopes he will someday.

Good or bad, they usually explain to him why they're doing what they're doing, even if it doesn't really make sense to him. This time, though, there was no explanation. No anything except his bedroom door, locked from the outside.

Oh, and his window! Butters turns from the door and looks at it. It's not a way out, painted shut like that. But he can look out through it, so that's what he does now. There's nothing to see, no superhero or boyfriend or nothing like that. Nope, there’s nothing to see out there right now but South Park.

And the whole wide world beyond, just waiting for him, someday.


	9. Curls and Grooves

  


"Here, man," Stan says, shifting Kyle into his lap, "how's this?"

Kyle makes a sound sort of like a purr, if purrs started with the letter "m," before extracting a word: "Better." He leans back, letting Stan's arm support him.

Then he shivers but he doesn't have to say anything, because Stan is already reaching for the poncho. The neck is stretched out from yesterday, when they horsed around at a rest stop on the way here, pretending to be a two-headed monster and chasing this little kid around while his parents watched on in amusement. They'd been nice, that family; square but nice. The little kid even gave them a couple of his lollipops, and scrambled into the way back of the station wagon to wave to them as his family drove off.

The poncho, its neck stretched out all pefect, fits easily over both their heads now. Kyle nestles deeper into the curve of Stan's body, eyes turned toward the stage where Joan Baez is about to come on. Stan digs her, too, of course; how could he not?

But there's nothing he digs as much as the curls and grooves of Kyle's freaky hair.


	10. Nothing to Do Today But Smile

  


Butters knows he not the only one who goes to visit Kenny in the hospital and he probably doesn't have to do it every single day…but Kenny just seems so gosh darn happy to see him, and that makes Butters happy, and they both wind up smiling a lot.

So Butters visits Kenny every day. Kenny's a real nice guy and he probably always scootches over to one side of his bed so whoever is visiting can climb up and sit with him awhile, no matter who it is, but that doesn't matter to Butters; he feels special, anyhow. Well, Kenny probably makes everyone feel special, Butters reckons.

He tries to save up good things to tell Kenny about, so Kenny will smile and maybe even laugh a little. Sometimes it hurts him when he laughs, but he says he doesn't mind. Butters minds, though, and he's real careful now to save up things that only make Kenny laugh a little, but still smile a lot 'cause smiling doesn't hurt.


	11. The Swell of Your Smile

  


Craig Tucker bothers some people, but not Kevin. So Kevin doesn't look up when he realizes Craig is standing there staring at him. He doesn't shift to face the other way, either. He just sits on the bottom bleacher, doing what he was doing before he became aware of Craig: which was, of course, just sitting on the bottom bleacher.

"What's up with you today?" Craig finally asks.

Kevin glances at him. "Nothing. What's up with you every day?"

"Ha." Craig pronounces it like a word, not a sound of amusement, which is fine because Kevin wasn't intending to amuse.

Yeah, Craig bothers a lot of people but not Kevin. And not Clyde, who jogs over to them now. "Hey, guys! What's goin' on?"

Even though he knows Clyde means it in a different way than Craig did, Kevin is about to answer him the same anyhow—but Craig says, "Kevin lost his smile or something."

"Oh." Clyde crouches down and looks at Kevin.

Kevin looks back.

Clyde has a way of getting under Kevin's skin. Not on his nerves or anything. Just, sometimes it's like Clyde slips inside. He's doing it now, Kevin thinks.

Sure enough: "I don't think it's lost," Clyde says. "It's still in there." He sits down next to Kevin now, slings his arm across Kevin's shoulders, looks up at Craig like that's the end punctuation on the matter of Kevin's smile.

Kevin looks up at Craig, too. Even though Kevin's not looking at Clyde, he knows Clyde is grinning: he can see Clyde's grin on Craig's face, just there at the upturned corner of Craig's mouth, which wasn't upturned before.

He likes looking at Clyde's smile like this.

Kevin lets himself slide along the curve of Clyde's arm, millimeter by millimeter, until his cheek touches the swell of Clyde's smile and comes to rest there.


	12. Kiss Like This

  


"Kyle…"

"It's okay." Kyle keeps looking at Stan, though not into Stan's eyes—sad again—or at his own hand on Stan's bare skin. He can feel Stan's shirt resting against the back of his fingers and unfolds them, seeking the hem, to pull the shirt back down. "It's okay, Stan," he says, feeling it's important to use Stan's name because Stan has used his, like they're reminding themselves and each other who they are. Stan and Kyle. That means something.

Kyle waits for Stan to deny that it's okay or to apologize for not wanting to fool around right now, but Stan doesn't say anything. He doesn't move away, though, his knee still nestled between Kyle's, his hand not quite touching Kyle's chest, fingers curled somewhere between closing in on himself and reaching out.

"Hey," Stan says at last. "I really want to kiss you."

It wasn't a question so Kyle doesn't answer, not with words; he lets his eyes fall shut.

And feels the press of Stan's lips to his forehead.

Kyle looks up, looks Stan in the eyes to tell him it's okay: their eyes meet but the words never leave Kyle's mouth because Stan slips his tongue between Kyle's parted lips.

They kiss like this, sharing breath, sharing this.


	13. The Other Side of Your Skin

  


Kenny doesn't think of himself as a particularly anxious person but there's always something humming on the other side of his skin, the inside part. Sometimes it's nice to feel like that and other times he just wants to feel quiet all over.

It's hard to get that quiet feeling. He's tried a lot of different things and nothing works, not in a lasting way anyhow. The humming always finds a way through whatever Kenny tries.

So it will probably find a way through Butters someday.

Then again, there's an exception to every rule and Butters is pretty exceptional.

This isn't someday, though, it's just today. And today, right now, the feeling Butters gives him sweeps quietly along under Kenny's skin.

  



	14. Han Solo & the Light Saber

  


  


Even before Clyde called out to him, Kevin had come to a stop and was turning around: he'd know those footsteps anywhere, even muffled by the grass.

Clyde slowed and, as he reached Kevin, brought his hands up to the sides of his head, not quite pressing the cinnamon rolls to his ears. "Now will you go out with me?"

It was hard not to grin back and, though he did manage to keep his mouth to a slight curve, Kevin couldn't keep the smile out of his eyes as he looked at Clyde, chest rising and falling as his lungs tried to get back some of the breath he must have lost running just now.

Kevin was pretty close to saying yes. There was just one thing…

Princess Leia was meant to be with Han Solo. This was not even up for discussion.

Now, Kevin would happily be the Han to Clyde's Leia—but when did Han Solo ever carry a light saber?

He started to point out the flaw in Clyde's reasoning but, even though Kevin's smile had started to crack open, he couldn't get the explanation out. The more open his smile got, the less there was room for anything else and, in the end, there was only room for one word:

"Okay," Kevin said.

The cinnamon rolls they shared as they walked along together were the most delicious Kevin could ever remember having.


	15. The Constellation of Kyle

  


  


Kyle thinks this sweater is dumb but his brother gave it to him, so he wears it sometimes.

There are things Kyle doesn't know about this sweater. He doesn't know that Stan bought it but knew Kyle would think it was dumb; he knew Kyle would only wear it if it came from his brother, so Stan asked Ike for a favor.

(There are things Stan doesn't know about Ike and favors, like how Ike pretends indifference but secretly loves being a collaborator in the Stan-Kyle Love Conspiracy, which has always been a part of his world and which, he hopes, always will be. But that is a story for another day.)

There are things Kyle doesn't know about this sweater and things he does know. He knows the stars are the most ridiculous part of it but he doesn't know they're also the most important. He knows the stars make Stan have to close his eyes sometimes but he doesn't know that it's not because Stan finds them too absurd to look at. Kyle doesn't know that when he wears this sweater, Stan imagines him becoming the constellation of Kyle; he doesn't know that Stan closes his eyes not to look away but to look deeper into space, floating in the darkness between the stars, comforted by the impossible yet undeniable breath of the constellation against his skin.

There are many things Kyle doesn't know about this sweater—but that doesn't matter, because there are many things Kyle does know about Stan.

He knows, for example, that when Stan is like this, so close but somehow far away behind his eyelids, Kyle doesn't need to wait for Stan to open his eyes to come to him. He just needs to wait for the smile.

Smile, and smile, and…

_[ ~ kiss ~ ]_


	16. Elbows

  


  


Kyle loves Stan. Stan is his super best friend, not like a brother but closer than one. They’ve had their rough patches and they even drifted away from each other once upon a time, when Stan set himself adrift and Kyle didn’t know how to reach him (he was just a kid, he tells himself; Stan tells him that, too, on those late nights when sleeplessness and the dark have become their own kind of drug, and conversations that hide from daylight come out, and Kyle tries to apologize—Stan won’t ever let him, though. He knows Stan is absolving him, but absolution is not what Kyle wants).

They found each other again, of course. They always have and they always will, so Kyle doesn’t mind when Stan talks about going away to music camp for the summer or when he needs to spend his Friday _and_ his Saturday nights with Wendy because they just got back together again. (He sometimes wonders about that: if Stan and Wendy will always get back together the way he and Stan always will, but it’s not the same; everyone has told him that, Stan has told him that. He knows Stan is reassuring him, but reassurance is not what Kyle wants.)

Kyle is thinking these things even though it’s not the dark of night; it’s a bright morning and they’re on their way to school. Stan brushes against him again, and again Kyle looks over, but Stan doesn’t say anything. He isn’t looking at Kyle, and Kyle wonders if Stan even knows what he’s doing.

Whether or not he knows, he keeps doing it.

No matter how far apart they go, they’ll always come back together again, their elbows will always clink as they walk along beside each other. Someday that might not be enough to make Kyle smile…

But today it is.


	17. Smiling Inside-Out

  


When Butters asks if he can kiss Kenny, Kenny says, "Okay," thinking Butters just wants to learn. He knows Butters has been kissed before but Kenny thinks Butters might have come to not really count a $5 kiss behind the school just to stop from being bullied. He figures Butters is asking him because he thinks Kenny knows a lot about kissing (his exact words last week at Bebe’s party had been, if Kenny recalls correctly, "Boy, you sure do know a lot about kissin'!") and because he remembers Kenny telling him that he can always come to Kenny, for anything, no matter what it is; remembers and believes, which makes Kenny smile inside. 

So when Butters says, "Hey, Ken—would it be all right if I kissed you?", Kenny says, "Okay," thinking all that, smiling inside.

Before he can think anything else, Butters leans in right then and there, and Kenny still has his eyes open when their mouths touch. 

When their mouths touch and in the first moments of touching, Kenny realizes Butters doesn't need anyone to teach him about kissing.

He thinks he'll wait for the kiss to end before telling Butters that, though.

As the kiss goes on and on, Kenny stops thinking at all and kisses back, smiling and smiling and smiling inside-out.


	18. The Road, Pt. 1: Going

  


It had been past midnight when he got the text from Stan, and Kyle was out on the street by the time they got there. Okay, not on the street, technically—just shy of it, his toes hovering above the asphalt as he balanced himself, rocking, on the curb. “What’s going on?” he asked when they pulled up and Stan rolled down his window.

“Us,” Kenny said from the back seat. “We’re going on.”

“We’re going, anyhow,” Stan said.

 _Where?_ , Kyle meant to ask, but somehow it came out, “Right now?”

“Right now,” Stan confirmed.

They looked at each other through the open car window. _Are you high?_ , Kyle wanted to ask, but he already knew they were, and he also knew that wasn’t why they were going. They were going because, sooner or later, they were going to go…and sooner had finally become now.

 _Okay_ , Kyle meant to say, but he didn’t say anything at all as he walked around and got in the front passenger seat.

It’s hours later now. Hours and miles and miles. He’s glad he didn’t say “okay” last night because he’s not sure it’s going to be; but he’s not sorry he got in and came with them, wherever they’ve come.

“Where the fuck are we?” Kenny says, looking around as they get out to stretch their legs.

Kyle looks at Stan’s grin and is afraid that something ridiculous is going to come out of it, something like, _We’re there_ , or, _We’re going_ , or _We’re on_. Stan and his grin don’t say anything, though.

“Ridiculous,” Kyle says.

But he’s not sorry he’s going with them.


	19. The Road, Pt. 2: Going All Along

  


They’ve been on (and off, and right back on) the road for days now, days and days and hundreds more miles than days. They’ve been going and going, and Kyle has stopped asking where they’re going because Stan and Kenny just smile and tell him it’s not important to know where they’re going; they haven’t said so, but Kyle suspects they think it’s more important not to know.

They’ve been on the road for a while now and this isn’t their first roadside campfire. There’s nothing special about it, really…except that somehow it’s making Kyle want to ask if this is it: if this is where they’ve been heading all along.

He turns to ask Stan but when their eyes meet, Kyle forgets the question.

Their knees bump against each other, come to rest, touching. Something tingles along Kyle’s nape, just under his skin; whatever it is never makes it to his brain and he can’t help thinking his knee remembers the forgotten question and has asked Stan’s knee; he suspects their knees now know something they don’t.

“You guys,” Kenny says from his sprawl on the ground. When they look at him, he exhales slow and sweet. “God, you guys,” he says, smiling up at the stars.

Kyle glances up at the stars, too. He doesn’t see whatever is making Kenny smile and figures it must be the weed.

Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t; when Kyle looks down from the stars, Stan—who hasn’t been smoking tonight—is also smiling.

Kyle smiles, too, even if he doesn’t know why, and leaves his knee where it is, hoping Stan’s knee will share more secrets.


	20. The Shapes of Things

  


Butters tightens his hands, already in the shape of fists, even more. He thinks of them like that—the _shape_ of fists, not fists themselves—because he sure as heck isn't aiming to hit anyone, or punch the air or anything.

"I guess it didn't work, huh?"

Clyde's words make Butters jump a little inside. Not because he's startled—how could he forget Clyde is there, when he can feel Clyde's breath on his skin? It's more like the jumping he felt when Clyde pressed his lips to Butters' eyelid just now.

Butters rubs his fist-shaped hands against each other. "Maybe it did work," he says. "What was it supposed to do?"

Their faces are close, closer than normal—but even so, in the corner of his vision, Butters sees Clyde smile. Clyde has a real nice smile and Butters kind of wants to look at Clyde's mouth, but that might not be too polite. So he keeps himself looking into Clyde's eyes, and realizes he can see the smile there, too.

"It was supposed to make it all better, of course." Clyde shifts on the ledge he's sitting on as he stretches his legs, one of them brushing against Butters. Clyde doesn't seem to notice or else he doesn't think it's a big enough deal to say anything about; it kind of feels like a big deal to Butters, but he doesn't want Clyde to apologize for it and he doesn't know what else he would say, so he pushes the thought away.

"Well, thanks," Butters says, wanting to say something, at least, to Clyde and his smile, which are still pretty close despite the shifting. "It was real nice of you to try."

Clyde's smile fades as he lifts his hand and Butters can't help sucking in his breath, but he doesn't flinch otherwise; flinching sometimes makes it worse, so he tries not to do it at all, if he can help it.

But Clyde's touch is soft when it lands near Butters' eye. Just his fingertips, not even fist-shaped. His fingertips aren't quite as soft as his lips, but Butters gets a little jumpy inside anyhow.

There's something else mixed in, a little worry that Clyde is going to ask him about it again. Butters hates lying to his friends. But Clyde only says, "Can I try again?"

Butters nods. He closes his eyes without Clyde asking this time, waits to feel Clyde's lips—

And he does feel them, but not on his eyelid. Clyde's lips touch Butters' lips and when Butters sucks in his breath in surprise, he winds up with a mouthful of kiss.

When he's breathing air again instead of Clyde, Butters feels the curve of his mouth tug upwards. "I think it might've worked that time," he says.

"I don't know," Clyde says, but something in his eyes says he does, and it makes Butters hippity-hop all over inside. "Maybe I should try one more time?"

Butters doesn't close his eyes this time until right before his mouth gets to Clyde's.


	21. Zombie Apocalypse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of [Arvy's zombie AU](http://miaoujones.tumblr.com/tagged/arvy%27s-zombie-au).

It didn’t happen fast.

It didn’t exactly happen slow, either. Like there wasn’t time to stop it or even to figure out why it was happening—but there was time to figure out what was happening and to get away, if you wanted to. A lot of them just didn’t really want to.

  


Tweek had been the first to go. He’d seemed calm about it, and calm after the fact. So calm that they hadn’t killed him. He stays with Craig now, which Kenny thinks is what Tweek has kind of always wanted. He thinks Craig knows it, too, even if he didn’t before. Craig, wandering around with Tweek on a chain, is still the spaceman, although Kenny is the one wearing the helmet now.

They hadn’t been able to tell at first that Stan had gone: he’d been incommunicative and hollow eyed for weeks. Kenny knows he hadn’t been a zombie the whole time, but he’s ashamed to say he doesn’t know exactly when the transition occurred. He knows roughly when it happened to Kyle: he stood there and watched Kyle trying to get Stan to bite him. Kenny left while Kyle was whispering, “Come on, Stan, you can do it—I know you can.” Kenny could have dragged Kyle away with him, but he didn’t: he just didn’t want to mess with the kind of faith Kyle had in Stan. When he went back later, Kyle’s belief in Stan had been proven justified. Kenny doesn’t like the idea of keeping them on a chain and he doesn’t think they’d like it either—Kyle wouldn’t, at least—so he hid them away and left them to each other.

Not all the zombies are gentle, though. And not everyone has given up and given in: Bebe knows fucking _kung fu_ , and she’s fearless with it. She tells Kenny she’s not fearless at all; she just doesn’t have time to be afraid when she’s out there looking for other survivors with Kevin and Clyde.

  


So there are the dead, and the undead, and those who patrol, and those who wander.

And there are those yet unaccounted for, too…


	22. When All Other Lights Go Out

  


It was weird, Kyle thought, how you could be looking right at darkness falling but still not realize it had actually fallen for some time. He's been sitting here looking out the window for who knows how long, watched the sun slip below the horizon; watched the residue of daylight fade and blur and dissipate a while ago...but it's only just occurred to him that he's sitting in the dark. He wonders if this is how it feels for Stan, when his own personal darkness steals up on him.

Shifting his gaze from the darkened sky, Kyle looks at Stan: he doesn't appear to have moved from his position on the bed, where he'd curled himself hours ago. Kyle is pretty sure Stan isn't asleep, but Stan might want him to think that. Or maybe Stan doesn't care what Kyle thinks right now; maybe the darkness is too thick inside him, swollen and pushing out everything else.

When they were younger and the darkness first came to Stan, Kyle didn't understand it. He'd thought it was Stan pushing him away, and he'd pushed Stan away right back. He still doesn't fully understand it (and, he knows, neither does Stan), but at least now he gets that it's not Stan doing the pushing.

Still, there are times to stay and times to go. He knows Stan won't be able to tell him to go, even if that's what he really wants, so Kyle stands quietly and makes his way towards the door.

"Are you leaving?"

Stan's voice is low, flat-lined, but the question mark makes its way into Kyle, hooking into heart. Lifting a hand, he rubs at it through his chest. "Not if you don't want me to."

There's a rustling as Stan uncurls himself and moves over on the bed, making room for Kyle. He doesn't say anything when Kyle climbs onto the bed, and neither does Kyle.

Then, even though Kyle knows the answer, he can't help asking, "What can I do to help?"

Stan doesn't say anything, which Kyle supposes is the same as saying, _Nothing_.

Then: "You could sing me a song, maybe?"

It's half a moment before Kyle realizes Stan's words have made him catch and hold his own breath. He lets it out in a soft rush, draws another, and it just comes out, shaky at first, getting stronger as he goes on, the first song Stan ever sang him when he learned to play guitar:

_Look at the stars,  
Look how they shine for you,  
And everything you do,  
Yeah, they were all yellow._

_I came along,  
I wrote a song for you,  
And all the things you do,  
And it was called "Yellow"._

_Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones,  
Turn into something beautiful,  
You know, you know I love you so,  
You know I love you so..._

The song fades, the darkness doesn't. When Stan reaches for him now, Kyle reaches back and holds on in the dark.


	23. Lucky

  


Ever since the Event—maybe it was the apocalypse and maybe it wasn't—the world has gone "every man for himself." If you try to go it alone, though, you're pretty much doomed: there's always someone out there stronger or luckier than you.

Tweek’s been getting by on luck, mostly. Lucky enough to find shadows to stay in, lucky enough that there have been distractions to turn attention away so he can dart into the light when he needs to.

But sooner or later luck always runs out, and Tweek isn’t too surprised when it happens to him. He’s more surprised it didn’t run out sooner. When luck leaves him so does hope. He’s empty now and calm in the emptiness: it’s a certainty that the man with the knife is going to kill him. That’s as far as Tweek can get in his thinking about it; he doesn’t get anywhere with feeling about it, which is fine with him.

_*CRACK*_

The man with the knife disappears—no, Tweek realizes, looking down: he hasn’t disappeared, he’s only fallen, the back if his skull caved in. Tweek looks up again. Oh, he sees: he’s going to be killed by a boy with a bat instead of a man with a knife. That’s fine, then.

“…said, Are you all right? Hey?”

Tweek looks at the boy’s moving mouth and, connecting it with the sound of words, finally filters their meaning.

“Yes,” he says, the calmness inside him swelling to an overwhelming darkness as he feels himself pitch forward, his last thought a mild surprise at how soft the ground is as it wraps around him.


	24. Dream Big

  


“You look like…” Kevin trailed off. It was hard to say exactly what Clyde looked like, but the look definitely demanded commentary, even if it took Kevin’s last, dying breath. He inhaled shallowly, hoping not to trigger his cough with anything so aggressive and offensive to it as air. 

“You look,” he tried again, but where the cough had let him get away with breathing, it wasn’t so forgiving of words this time. He fell back on his bed as the hacking racked his body. 

When he looked up, he saw Clyde leaning down a little, his head cocked in what Kevin thought might be anticipation. Still lying down, Kevin looked up into his face. “You look like some sort of tortoise hunchback Disney witch.” As Clyde considered this without comment, Kevin couldn’t help asking, “Why are you wearing sunglasses?”

“They’re my sick people glasses, Kevin,” Clyde said in all seriousness. 

They looked at each other awhile.

And a little while more.

“I like them,” Kevin finally said.

Clyde smiled, like, _I know you do_. “You can wear them when you get better,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Something to shoot for,” Clyde said. “I know you like to dream big.”

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, lifting his hand vaguely in the direction of Clyde’s face without actually reaching for the sunglasses, without actually touching anything, just letting his fingertips dream.


	25. The Rest Stop on the Road to Broken

  
The second time Bebe said, "What’s wrong?", she added Wendy's name. When Wendy looked at her, Bebe had a feeling it was a reflex, some part of her responding even if she hadn't consciously heard anything. Bebe arched an eyebrow as her fingertips rubbed tiny circles against Butters' scalp. "Wendy?"

"Nothing," Wendy said. So she'd heard, after all. "I'm just tired."

"You should let Bebe give you a head massage," Butters said. "All the tired and everything just drains right out of you!"

Wendy managed what Bebe figured was a return smile to the one Butters sounded like he was beaming at her, but it was already fading as she turned away. Something was definitely wrong.

Bebe had a pretty good idea what it was, too. But if Wendy was determined not to talk about the two sleeping boys, Bebe wasn't going to push her. She watched her own fingers slide deeper into Butters' hair, couldn't help grinning at the sound he made in response (somewhere between a purr and the chirruping squeak of the hamsters he'd tried to bring along—stashed them in his pockets but they gave themselves away squeaking with excitement before the car even left the driveway when he'd slipped them a peanut to share).

No, Bebe wasn't going to push. She'd just be here to pick up the pieces when Wendy finally broke.


	26. Waking Up (Feel It In My Bones)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from the artist: "my ultimate goal in life is to make everyone feel uncomfortably attracted to Clyde".

It's the first day of school and Clyde shows up like _this_ , flaunting the growth spurt he got over the summer (which he'd spent out of town with his sister and her family, so no one's seen him until now, not even his best friend) and the new confidence that comes with it. "How d'ya like me now?"

He doesn't actually say that, of course. He just stands there like this and Craig hears the words in his head. Craig doesn't answer aloud and he makes himself look away before Clyde can see his response, because he has this weird yet unshakable feeling that Clyde can see right through him now. So it's only in his head that Craig says, "I like you, Clyde. I like you a lot.”

When he casts a sidelong glance in Clyde's direction, it turns out not to be as furtive as Craig had hoped, and the hot jolt that shoots through him when their gazes connect make Craig absolutely certain that, despite all precautions, Clyde _knows_ …

The feeling persists throughout the day. A couple of times Craig tries to steal a glance at Clyde but the kid turns to meet his gaze each time and Craig winds up all tangled up. So he stops, but it's kind of too late because he's already looked enough to know what Clyde looks like. 

And then somehow he winds up sitting straight across from Clyde at lunch. Craig excuses himself half way through, ditches his pushed-around food on the way out, heads for the boys room, the neglected one up on the third floor that no one is ever in this time of day. He locks himself in one of the stalls and he knows he's kind of going to hate himself when he pulls his pants down and wraps his fingers around his cock, but he does it anyhow. He tries not to think about Clyde, at least, but that's impossible since Clyde is the reason Craig is here like this right now, and the harder Craig tries not to think about him, the deeper Clyde digs into his mind. 

Craig's fingers can't dig into the cool, unyielding metal of the stall door, so he splays them out and presses his palm against it as hard as he can when he comes.

He leans back from the stall door, tips his head up, blows out the breath he's just sucked in. He opens his eyes to keep himself from picturing Clyde looking like _that_ , smiling like _that_ , as he tucks himself in and does himself up. 

The door swings ajar when he unlocks it and he pushes it wider on his way out, and then the rebound hits him in the shoulder because he's just standing there, because Clyde is standing there.

Leaning there, anyhow. "Are you okay, man?" Clyde asks, still leaning back on the sink nearest the door.

Craig drags his eyes away, letting them latch onto his own hand as he rubs his shoulder. "Yeah. It just bumped me."

"I didn't mean your shoulder. You've been acting weird all day and then you didn't eat anything at lunch…"

Clyde trails off but Craig knows he knows, so Craig says it before Clyde can: "And then I came up here and jerked off."

He doesn't look at Clyde when he says it because he doesn't want to know what Clyde's face looks like right in this exact moment.

Then he realizes there's nothing else he'd rather see, so he looks.

Their gazes meet.

And hold.

"Go to the prom with me," Craig says.

"What?" Clyde makes a sound that Craig thinks must be a laugh, since his mouth is starting to curve up. "It's only September, dude!"

"I know," Craig says, "but there isn't going to be anyone else."

He watches Clyde push off the sink and cross to him, looking like _this_ , smiling like _this_ , and then his smile opens up into the one Craig knows so well, feels like he's known his whole life, and he has a moment to wonder, when it first touches his mouth, why it took him so long to taste Clyde's smile; and then there is only the kiss.


	27. Some Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of [Arvy's zombie AU](http://miaoujones.tumblr.com/tagged/arvy%27s-zombie-au).

Some days Clyde felt like he could save the world.

Okay, maybe not the world—but part of it. The part with Bebe and Kevin and Kenny and Craig and Tweek. Even if Tweek was already a zombie.

Yeah, on the good days Clyde felt like they could hold onto everything they still had, each other and everything that mattered, and it was all going to come out okay in the end.

Other days…

Well, other days Clyde did not feel like that so much.


	28. What can you see on the horizon

It didn’t start with a kid running down the street, holding a dying guinea pig, and it didn’t end there either. But whenever Craig thinks about that day—which is definitely one of the times he fell in love with Clyde, and not even the strangest or the saddest one—that’s how he remembers it.

Stripe was old by then. When she took a turn for the worse, somehow the word got around and Craig’s friends started coming by, and even some kids he’d never really thought of as friends, like Bebe and Wendy. “Well,” Clyde said, as if it were obvious why everyone had come, “Stripe is important.”

Craig didn’t know what to say to that so he didn’t say anything. He sat on the floor, holding Stripe and giving her the treats she would take, letting the conversation go on around him like the words were stars in nearby galaxies.

Then she lost interest in the treats. She turned away from the water Craig had been giving her with an eyedropper. Her breathing got worse, and then her mouth opened as she seemed to choke on her own breaths.

He didn’t know what to do and that’s what he meant to say, but it came out, “Do something!”

So Clyde—of course it would be Clyde—did. He took Stripe from Craig’s hands and ran out of the room; it sounded like he was running down the stairs; there was the sound of the front door slamming and when Craig looked out the window with the others, there was Clyde, cradling Stripe in his arms as he ran down the street.

"The fuck is he doing?" someone said.

No one said anything else as they watched Clyde go.

Then: “Something,” Craig said. “He’s doing _something_.” And without waiting to hear what anyone might say to that, Craig did something, too—he took off running, too.

He knew he wouldn’t catch up to Clyde but that was okay because he knew exactly where Clyde was going, which side of the exact tree Craig would find him sitting under. Even so, he ran as fast as he could because Clyde had been running as fast as _he_ could.

Craig didn’t stop until he got to the tree at Stark’s Pond. He bent over, hands on his knees, catching his breath as Clyde looked up at him. “See?” Clyde said softly, returning his gaze to Stripe as he petted her head. “I promised you he’d make it on time, and here he is.”

He didn’t say anything more as Craig sat down next to him and neither did Craig. Wordlessly, Clyde settled Stripe in Craig’s arms and leaned over to continue petting her.

They sat there for a while.

They sat there for as long as it took.

They sat a little longer still. Clyde’s sleeve got mottled with tears but he didn’t say anything and he didn’t take his hand away, at least not at first; when he finally moved, he leaned into Craig in a way that made it okay for Craig to lean into him.

When Craig was finally ready, he leaned back into himself. He took a moment, took a deep breath, before looking over at Clyde.

Clyde gave him a smile, in his eyes and the corners of his mouth, and the smile told Craig that everything wasn’t okay right now, not at all, and it wouldn’t be for a while—but eventually it would be.

And Craig knew it was true, because Clyde would never lie to him and his smile couldn’t even if it wanted to.


End file.
